


01

by threadoflife



Category: Original Work
Genre: Depression, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, negativity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:34:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21660373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threadoflife/pseuds/threadoflife
Summary: experiments.no, actually. history. coping. suicidality is detrimental and beneficial for art. it wants out: & if you relate, selena lael said, you are not broken, my love. you are having an experience that feels like you're breaking.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

_depression_

It’s a slow drag down underwater: a gradual lessening of your ability to breathe. A second passes, and in that second you still exist, and you use up energy, you breathe. A second passes, so you breathe, so a breath escapes you, and you, struggling to survive—will it be like that? Will you be struggling to survive? They say at the end of it all your survival instinct kicks in, that rapid slapdash collage of your life flares up, and you’ll want to live, survive. Will it be like that?—you, struggling to survive, your body will want another breath—there, that’s it: it’ll be your dumbfuck body wanting to survive, it knows it’s time hasn’t come yet—your body will want that other breath, and if you’ll be able to think you’ll think, _you stupid piece of shit, stop it, stop trying to breathe_, but it’s not like your body’s ever listened to you, has it. What does it want from you, anyway? Internal administration issues fucking up your life: there you go, human, your neurotransmitters are wired all wrong and serotonin is on short supply, so ration it out for the entirety of your life. You get another’s yearly amount, it’ll have to last for the rest of all your years. Now go out there and exist, compete, pursue some happiness. That’s the letter you found lying under some trash, already half-rotten, when you went searching for some sort of explanation for all this after waking up in your own stink one too many times.

You didn’t have the letter from the start. You had to go looking. Some like you, they never get their letter at all; they just lie there and eventually decay. You started decaying, some edges of your body fraying, teeth damaged with self-induced puking, scarred skin smooth shiny new but crepe-y when you pull at it with your fingers. Your personal brand of decay, which is just brain decay in advanced stages bleeding out of the pores of your body. It’s embarrassing, when it’s bad enough that it shows. It does show, when you’re weak. Have a fragile constitution. Hypersensitive wanker, useless, helpless, inept. Take some fucking needle and thread, stitch it back together and keep walking. Nothing to see here.

There’s plenty to see, so you went looking. Found that letter. It hasn’t helped a bit. What’re you gonna do with it? Show it to the world like a participation badge for the cripplelympics? Nobody wants to be in them. You’re not getting any advantages with that pass. Likely no help either. None that works anyway.

You see, you’ll read what’s up with you. Why every breath you take and every energy you expend is like that slow drag down underwater. It’ll be written in there. Chemical imbalance, genetics, trauma, or some bullshit you cooked up yourself. There’s a reason? That’s good: congrats! You won’t beat yourself up over being pathetic for no reason at all. But don’t worry, you’ll do that anyway. That’s the good thing about it all, you don’t miss a single experience, you get the full spectrum. Got no reason? You’ll wish you had one, so you could be less of a sad sack of shit about it. Got a reason? You’ll be stuck in a cycle, wishing it had been worse: it clearly wasn’t bad enough. It’ll never be bad enough. Other people will always have had it worse, and you’re just crawling for—you’re guessing right—no reason at all! You see? Patterns. You’re that hamster stuck in the wheel, circles, circles, all of it circles. It’s like the lottery, really. You can see it coming. Not that it helps anything, to know that. You got it all and you got nothing, and none of it changes a single fucking thing.

All of this, self-conditioned negativity. It’s got you running. You’re performing beautifully on that wheel.

Maybe you’ll bully your body into shutting the fuck up next time—tire it out until it forgets it’s meant to survive, until it yields. It’s likely. The wheel is exhausting in the long run.


	2. deluded ravings

_here to relive your darkest moment,_ Florence sings. Florence sings often.

You’re a machine, inexpressible and cyphered and Turing couldn’t crack you. If you’re a fictional somebody, what does it matter. These aren’t yours. Maybe that’s why reading was always it.

The window ledge taunts you. You feel the pressure underneath the fat of your thigh, but you don’t jump. You never fucking jump. Should’ve: should’ve. Fucking should’ve. Should’ve been a freak accident, should’ve slipped, should’ve fallen to crack the bullshit slush in your headcage open, let it all bleed out like you couldn’t let it on your wrist. There’s a faint scar there, like a permanent scratch. A cat’s little thank you, every day, never fading. There’s a tattoo there too, a pathetic memento to survival. Survival all right.

Shove the spoon into your mouth. It’s fucking pasta, you’re not an invalid. It’s just pasta. How can pasta trigger you, what the fuck is wrong with you? Shove it in. Shove it fucking in, eat, if you don’t give a shit you might as well eat you pathetic little piece of shit.

The firemen were there, years ago, when you had your psychotic break. Or was it neurotic? Litte bordie on the fence, you can’t even do an illness right. Of course you’ve got a fucking literal borderline illness. That’s how fucked you are. Neurotic, psychotic, you’re fucked up, what do designations matter. It’s your ID, isn’t it. Who are you if not ill. The firemen were there, and you talked about it with pride like it was some sort of achievement. Failed to kill myself: pay me attention. I’m alone and I tried to kill myself and I want your attention so I feel momentarily loved like a druggie looking for the next high, because you can’t even feel loved. There are people. You are lucky. You are a lucky asshole. You’re not alone, unlike some. Why do you feel so alone? Why feel so alone?

You wish he’d hate fucked you, the bastard with the long hair and long pinkie nail. He hated you but he didn’t fuck you, he didn’t even give you a reason to be like this. Neither did she, no verbal abuse, no physical beatings. You were a ghost, that’s all. What the fuck is wrong with you.

Shove the spoon in. Eat. There’s tearsalt on it, running over the bridge of your nose. Cry quietly. You deserve nothing else. You’re the filthiest dirt but you came away somewhere feeling like the world owed you something, like it owed you love of comfort or wellbeing. It doesn’t. You have to do recovery yourself.

There are flashes of light. You have something that makes you happy, no, actually, they’re three things, four things, four things that make you happy but you goddamn Joker you can’t even say it, can you? So many words and you can’t say any of them, just fucking choke on them and do everyone a favour, fuck off. What’s wrong with you, who gave you the feeling you oughtn’t be happy—nobody did, nobody did, you tell this to anyone they look at you like you’ve hung the moon negative: what? What are you saying? What’s wrong with you? Of course you can be happy, you should be happy, that’s what you’re here for. I can’t. I can’t. They’re on the backs of my teeth eroding the bones. What’s wrong with… what’s wrong with…

Flashes of light: you can be happy. You’ll get out of this mess, you’ll learn to recognise what makes you happy you’ll learn to vocalise it you’ll learn to pursue it. You’ll learn you’re not a freak you’re a human being who isn’t God who’s pathetic and flawed but at the end of it has a chance to be happy and it’s okay to do that. Flashes of light. Flashes.

Where’s the knife, fuck, put the knife away. I can’t look at it. It’s just sitting there, a dull fucking knife to smear butter on bread. It’s dull, you can’t stop staring. You want to feel the singe see the red feel it open: crisscross criss----crosss------over your bloody fucking wrist so it can be _done_, it should have been done long ago, oh, God, oh, God.

Flashes of light. There are four things that make you happy. There’d be more if you weren’t like you are. Self harm, knife, like you’re a naïve teenager just starting out. Sweet sixteen bordie, only you’re a sad sack bordie near double the age, throw a party. Slip off the window ledge. Please, slip off, slip off. You can’t even remember why, you were on the phone, you talked, next thing you know you’re sitting on the kitchen floor hand in a cooling pool of your blood like it’s a bad film. You threw a toaster, you threw some knives. Don’t get close. Let me do this, let me do this please I want out I want _o u t _you don’t get it, you don’t get it. Chronic, suicidal.

What you always saw was yourself in that other country, seeing theatre plays and laughing. Even then, always alone. Always alone.

Flashes of light. You don’t have to shine, you don’t have to be anyone but yourself. But darling I don’t want to be myself, I don’t think you wanted to be yourself, either, ever, did you. You wrote it came back before you went out, it came back. How do you feel it come back when it’s all you ever were? Give me my stones, take me to the river.

An animal noise. Shove the fucking spoon in. Eat. Get up, put the food away once you’ve had some. Function. Distraction.

Pills like stones down your throat, sleep. C’est la vie. C’est la vie, you pathetic dramatic capital b Bitch. It’s yours, you’re the runner. Great show. Cut the cord, crisscross, cut it _cut _it. How is none of this your fault. Flashes of light, why can’t you fucking grab the light, what is _wrong _with you for wanting to stay in that dark bathroom door barred sobbing into your fist. All alone. Why can’t you grab the fucking light.

Breathe. Another day. Breathe. Passes. All passes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> experiments. 
> 
> no, actually. history. coping. suicidality is detrimental and beneficial for art. it wants out: & if you relate, selena lael said, you are not broken, my love. you are having an experience that feels like you're breaking.

For a moment, your mind expands—you become bigger than yourself. Darkness overhead littered with stars, cold air on your face: you’re not walking home, you’re fourteen on a rare outing with a (half) friend and her friends sleeping under the open summer night sky in a field. You traded stories, you took a swim, you laughed. Odd, such memories of normalcy. It’s so long ago it might have been someone else’s life. It is someone else’s life, now.

Half, because self-hate must be sated. The beast must be fed. Your identity depends on it. Who are you, if self-hate falls away?

You read it in a story, once. He booked a hotel room in another town, brought trash bags, the big kind, and a gun. Taped off the bathroom tiles, the shower, a last courtesy to the hotel staff. You’ve no gun, obviously, so a knife will have to do. A paper stuck to the bathroom front door, too (“don’t come in, call the police”), because you wouldn’t want to be an asshole. That’s the issue with jumping in front of a train, the poor sod operating said train would be fucked forever. Enough that you are, so do it for yourself.

It’s a fantasy, and it’s not just a fantasy. It’s that odd realm between crossing a street and mentally willing that car to speed up, crash right into you. Low key hoping for a gas leak. Some disease, terminal. Focussing on the bread knife a little too long, over dinner.

Look at you, writing, for the first time in months. Misery does that to one. That’s how much you love it, writing, when it’s good only for this, when this is the only thing you can write about. Write me a treatise on self-hate. Expound on all the ways it hurts. Tell me, again, in detail, how you were left, what that did to you. Do you even know? Sad past, poor childhood, boohoo, are you over it yet. What the fuck is wrong with you, page one. What the fuck is wrong with you, page two. What the fuck is wrong with you, what the fucking fuck is _wrong _with you.

You were happy. You want to die. You just want to die. Sleep, not be awake, stop thinking, stop thinking, go away, go away. You’re exhausted. Your feet, slowing on the stairs. Breath when there’s no need to, heavy, deep. If you close your eyes while you walk, maybe you’ll walk into something, maybe something will walk into you. See, there, that’s your strength. Describing the different ways you want out, you write poetry for death, you sick fuck, because that’s your only companion, is it. Is it. No, it isn’t. You _make _it so. You make it so, you goddamn asshole.

You’re not giving the woman that satisfaction. You won’t. You’ll stay, you’ll endure, time numbs everything. Time stops pain. You’ll become someone different. You are someone different already. All of this will cease to matter. You’ll be left alone, hopefully, finally, to rot away by your lonesome. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Forget me. Forget me, carve me away, take me out to the trash. Leave me be. Leave me be. How can someone hate themself so, so, so, so much? Tell me what comes after. Tell me if there is something. Let this end. Oh, God, please. 

Fragments. Fragments. This can have no good end.

Cancerous, you, sucking the smile’s stability until it falls. Press your forehead to your bag, close your eyes, pretend you’re not there. They’ll forget you are, if you pretend hard enough. Then they can be happy.


End file.
